In one of the most public battles between measure and experience, the loudness wars in music drags on through a new era of streaming, transcoding, reproduction, and international standards bodies.

While the arguments shift, how is it that years of analysis, research, and proposed standards have not changed the prevailing attitudes of working mixing and mastering engineers that, quite simply, "Loud is good?"

Could it be that they understand something missed in the lab? Is there a set of measurements that would settle the war once and for all? Might there be a conceptual framework that works for us all?